


how terrible it is to love something death can touch

by spinninglilies



Category: Helix Waltz (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-11 18:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20550557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinninglilies/pseuds/spinninglilies
Summary: magda dies and everybody mourns





	1. a death and a funeral and the sakans mourned first

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally going to be about her will and last testament, but spawned into this ??

Magda dies. 

Or to be more specific, Lady Ellenstein-Sakan, age 53, former secretary to the Regent, wife to the Minister of Justice, mother of five, passes on a cold spring morning, as the first flowers bloomed at her window and sunlight streamed onto her bed. 

By evening, the papers, news and tabloid alike, will have an obituary, as well as a small article detailing her achievements and contributions to Finsel. Some will delve deeper into her humble origins (not the slum ones) and wax lyrical about her struggles. Others will have a prepared spiel on the subject, for fear of offending the Minister with a wrong phrase or implication.

By the next day, all of Finsel will have heard of it. Most will be shocked, for they had just seen her a week or two prior, at one tea party or another, laughing and eating dainty sandwiches. A few will have proclaimed that they saw it coming, that they had looked into her blue blue eyes and just _known_. Regardless, she will be mourned. Magda had that effect on people - they recalled her with fondness, even if they'd only met her once.

For the time being, Magda lay in bed, as peacefully as though she was asleep. Her head is on her husband's lap, and it was Barris who'd smoothed out her stray curls as her breathing faded. Her oldest son and youngest daughter each held a hand, and another son had just left the room to inform her father's secretary that he would not be coming into the office that day, or that month even.

Her youngest son had fled the room after saying his goodbyes. He'd only ever known his mother as vibrant and _aware,_ and any indication otherwise pained him more than the others. Their eldest daughter had also left the room, only to wander into her mother's dressing room and sit in the heavy silence.

They were all grieving. 

The servants grieved too. Ivan, who'd been appointed as butler soon after the birth of her third child, had waited outside the door until he heard Barris's first sob. If Magda had known he was outside, she'd have invited him in, but Magda hadn't known much in her last moments, and Barris was nearly too pained to think. 

Motiti had less reservations, and so she'd snuck in, a slice of apple pie at hand, and curled up at the foot of the bed. She was older than any of the children, but Magda and Barris had taken her in first, and so she kept that spot for herself.

By midday, Ivan had recovered enough to begin preparations on behalf of his masters. They'd kept the severity of Magda's illnesses away from most of society, out of respect for her own wishes. Her closest friends, however, had known from the start, and it was to them he sent out the messengers.

His hand shook as he wrote each word, trembled as he tied the ribbon around each parchment letter, and he nearly fell to the ground as he sent the footmen running out.

_Goddess, she's really gone._

_

Alan wanted there to be no news.

As a member of the city guard, he knew the procedures. No news meant nothing had happened, nothing untoward or devastating. No news would mean that Magda was still alive, still clinging to the last threads of living. 

Gonzalo, on the other hand, was nearly mad with impatience. He remembers his father's death - remembers the cold hands of a cold man and his mother's tears. Tilla had mourned once in front of her sons, and never again. (Tilla would mourn for Magda, too, just as privately and intensely as she had mourned her husband).

His face lights up when he sees the footman running up the doors to the palatial Jorcastle manor, and it almost immediately sinks when he reads the message.

_Magda passed this morning. Please come._

Alan had known, known the moment he'd heard the footman running up the door, barging in at breakfast time.

Gonzalo had not and in one devastating moment he'd found out.

Tilla, sitting at the end of the breakfast table, did not know who had it worse.

_

Juven and Asteria had, since the beginning, valued their time alone. This had held true, even after he became Regent, even after they became, in Barbara's words, "the most boring married couple in the world". Their time alone was theirs, and none could interrupt it.

So when the messenger comes in, even though there are at least six servants prepared to warn or even physically drag him away, Juven hopes that he has a bloody good reason to.

Snatching the proferred note, Juven opens it. 

And the blood drains from his face. 

He's a logical man. Pragmatic. He knows the facts. Juven's made it a habit to know things before being told. It works out better that way.

Asteria takes the note from him and reads it once through. Juven collapses back into his chair, processing, calculating. 

His fondess for Magda never extended beyond that for a younger sister, and then his aunt. He's never loved her, or even particularly adored her. He respects - respected her, and he never thought he would grieve too much for her.

He does. 

Asteria quietly gets up to leave. She's used to it. She has her rituals, has her ways, and she grieves everyone she's lost in quiet profoundity. She will weep for Magda and she will pray for her soul and then, she thinks, she will check on Barbara and Juven, before heading out to help Barris.

_

Barbara is almost ashamed to say that her first thought is of Barris.

She loves Magda - at this point, she has more memory of Magda than her own mother. Magda has done more for her than her own mother. That she knows and she acknowledges. 

The moment she hears the news, though, her thoughts flash to Barris. Flash to the only time she's seen him cry. Her stepgrandmother is a distant speck in her memory, but she recalls, keenly, the way Barris roared with grief.

Magda is gone. Magda is gone. Magda is gone and Barris is alone.

Barbara's grown from her childhood self, grown from her misguided brotherly admiration. She feels like she's three again, though, and watching through a crack of the door as Barris howls in misery.

_

Magda's funeral is beautiful. 

It was meant to be small - yet Magda's influence refused to allow it. News of her death brought out old servants, acquaintances long gone. The Rayoracans return, as well as those from Lionheart, and with them they bring new memories.

Flowers are laid on her coffin - roses and daylilies and exotic blooms and common pansies. Flowers are laid for her, and their sweet scent intermingles with the salt tears in the air.

They come and go, pay their respects. The young ones, come to mourn their friend's mother. The older generation, here to remember a girl they thought would outlast them all. They all come, they all share.

Barris sits by her coffin and whispers thanks. He whispers to her, though they all ignore it. 

_Look, Magda, see how they love you._


	2. interlude : the will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a short one without angst

Finsel believed in specialities. If anything - a store or restaraunt or person - had a speciality, the people of Finsel were of the opinion that they were good at it. A speciality distinguished a professional, and it could be found in every industry Finsel had to offer.

From the fishermen to the bakers, and to the governesses and shop assistants, each had a particular skillset, an exceptional ability to offer. If one did not have a speciality, then of what use was it to employ them ?

Sarae Montblanc had two specialities to speak of : the first was that she an excellent attorney, capable of settling all business lawsuits and so on and so forth in an entirely satisfactory manner. The second was that she was a woman, and a woman lawyer who did not deal in marriages, divorces or families, but rather trade and commerce law, and other monetary matters.

In places such as Rayorca, a woman like Sarae was of utmost common regularity. However, this was Finsel, and although they had grown more inclusive of late, the situation had not been the same some 20 odd years prior, when Sarae had first begun her practice.

It would have been all too easy and all too predictable for Sarae to have given up then, and gone to join another firm or left Finsel for more accepting shores. It would have been easy and it would have happened if Magda Ellenstein-Sakan had not taken an interest in her.

Here's a thing about Finsel : besides specialities, they believed in support.

Had it been Magda Ellenstein, debutante, who had taken an interest, her support wouldn't have been worth much. But it was Magda Ellenstein-Sakan, who had just recently vacated her position as Secretary to the Regent, whose personal salary over the past few years had given her a good amount of personal wealth, whose assets included the Ellenstein estate, now restored to it's full glory, who took such a personal interest in Sarae.

When pressed about her decision to entrust her fortune to a relative unknown, Magda would murmur a few words on "having matters only a woman would understand", and "taking a risk on others in the same way a risk was taken on her". If asked why she did not consult her husband instead, Magda laughed and said something on "valuing her independence" and "Barris thinks highly of her".

At any rate, Magda's support counted for something. Sarae Montblanc became recognised as the lady who would protect young debutantes from having their wealth stolen by unscrupulous suitors, as the best way to ensure the family estate did not leave family hands. Her small practice grew into a respectable firm, riding on Lady Ellenstein-Sakan's influence, and then it's own.

As far as Sarae was concerned, she owed Magda. And so it was only Ms Montblanc who had access to the Ellenstein files, and Ms Montblanc who undertook the task of handling Magda's will.

It was not particularly difficult to understand the terms of Magda's will - she and Barris had long agreed on which assests they had sole authority over, and which they shared. Magda's eldest son, as per custom, would take on the Ellenstein title, shedding the Sakan last name, a duty he agreed to. The Ellenstein estate, with all the family property and jewels, went to him. Magda's personal effects, such as the closet full of rarities she had aquired since youth, the antiques that she'd been gifted, and other valuable tokens, were thus distributed to her other children.

The hardest part, however, were the small things which Magda wished to leave to her friends. Sentimental effects were often difficult to distribute, for their recipients tended to be scattered about. Magda had a good many things she wished to leave to others, and Sarae anticipated troublesome hours spent locating them, inviting them to the reading of the will, and sending them off safely should the recipient prove unable to come.

It was to her surprise, however, that she had no such issues. From Lionheart to the slums, every beneficiary emerged. Some took a longer journey, but nevertheless they arrived, punctually, to the Ellenstein-Sakan drawing room on a rainy afternoon, eight days after Magda had been laid to rest.

**Author's Note:**

> this work is incomplete bc i want to expand on more characters. and send more angst and make myself sad.


End file.
